Managerial Quotes & Sayings

Concentration of ownership in the media is high and increasing. Furthermore, those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to the same privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations and attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class interests as well ... — Noam Chomsky

I am practical by nature, and I'd heard that being a writer or an artist is a good way to starve! So I was an economics major at Oklahoma State, and then received an M.S. from Cornell in Agricultural Resource and Managerial Economics. I knew if I wanted to write I would do it on my own, but I knew I wouldn't make myself study economics on my own. — Ally Carter

Mistakes and miscalculations are human and normal, and viewed in the long run they have not damaged the company. I do not mind taking responsibilty for every managerial decision I have made. But if a person who makes a mistake is branded and kicked off the seniority promotion escalator, he could lose his motivation for the rest of his business life and depreive the company of whaever good things he may have to offer later. If the casues of the mistake are clarified and made public, the person who made the mistake will not forget it and others will not make the same mistake. I tell our people Go ahead and do what you think is right. If you make a mistake, you will learn form it. Just don't make the same mistake twice. — Akio Morita

A managerial society is a society ruled by technocrats who make decisions on behalf of the masses. It — Jason Stanley

He would show them that ... that he ... that he was of managerial timber! (pg. 613) — Stephen King

Objective tests of managerial ability are few and far from scientific. In most cases the investor must rely upon a reputation which may or may not be deserved. — Benjamin Graham

To attain, and to keep, a professional-managerial job requires class-specific human capital. Developing and displaying that capital is a central preoccupation of upper-middle class life. — Susan T. Fiske

The level of intelligence has been tremendously increased, because people are thinking and communicating in terms of screens, and not in lettered books. Much of the real action is taking place in what is called cyberspace. People have learned how to boot up, activate, and transmit their brains.
Essentially, there's a universe inside your brain. The number of connections possible inside your brain is limitless. And as people have learned to have more managerial and direct creative access to their brains, they have also developed matrices or networks of people that communicate electronically. There are direct brain/computer link-ups. You can just jack yourself in and pilot your brain around in cyberspace-electronic space. — Timothy Leary

The Boy will not be a failure. Mythili knows.She has seen the generations before.The boy will make it.As his father has said,he does not have the option of failure.He will crack atleast one entrance exam,and he will one day have a nice house in a suburb of San Francisco,or in a suburb of a suburb of San Francisco.He will find a cute Tamil Brahmin wife and make her produce two sweet children.He will drive a Toyota Corolla to work.And there,in the conference room of his office,he will tell his small team,with his hands stretched wide in a managerial way,'We must think out of the box — Manu Joseph

We created the hierarchical, pyramidal, managerial system because we needed it to keep track of people and things people did; with the computer to keep track, we can restructure our institutions horizontally. — John Naisbitt

PDCA is the essence of managerial work: making sure the job gets done today and developing better ways to do it tomorrow. — Brian L. Joiner

In 1951, the Columbia University sociologist C. Wright Mills published a study titled White Collar: The American Middle Classes.26 Like Ronald Coase, Mills was fascinated by the rise of large managerial corporations. He argued that these firms, in their pursuit of scale and efficiency, had created a vast tier of workers who carried out repetitive, mechanistic tasks that stifled their imagination and, ultimately, their ability to fully participate in society. In short, Mills argued, the typical corporate worker was alienated. For many, that alienation was captured in the warning printed on the Hollerith punch cards that, thanks to IBM and other data processing firms, became ubiquitous symbols and agents of bureaucratized life during the 1950s and 1960s: "Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate. — Moises Naim

I have had interviews and got close to taking a managerial job. I would consider going back into football. — Alan Shearer

I think directing and writing are very different jobs. Obviously, directing is a more social and managerial job. The other thing about directing is that it's a very, very pragmatic job, and writing isn't. — Charlie Kaufman

Capitalism has taught us that markets are always more efficient than hierarchical managerial coordination. But in a situation where those three conditions aren't met, I can't outsource or partner with you because markets don't function in the absence of sufficient information. — Clayton Christensen

In Business School they taught us about cash flow, not about corporate politics; about return on equity, not about egos and pride. Oh, there were optional courses on 'Organizational Behavior' and 'Managerial Skills,' but these were a little too bloodless to convey what I learned on the job. — Mary Cunningham Agee

I was always fascinated by the decision-making process and the managerial process and just business in general. — Ronald Perelman

We call it the rule of seven. We've worked at other companies with a rule of seven, but in all of those cases the rule meant that managers were allowed a maximum of seven direct reports. The Google version suggests that managers have a minimum of seven direct reports (Jonathan usually had fifteen to twenty when he ran the Google product team). We still have formal organization charts, but the rule (which is really more of a guideline, since there are exceptions) forces flatter charts with less managerial oversight and more employee freedom. — Eric Schmidt

From the managerial perspective, Sir Oliver Humperdink, a heinous sort for most of his career, said the release of pentup emotions might even have been healthy for mind and soul. As heels, we were able to be as annoying and politically incorrect' as possible.We were able to say and do what everyone probably wanted to say and do, but, for one reason or another, could never, ever get away with. And, by being able to do so, I generally found that my fellow heels were much more 'easygoing' than our babyface counterparts who had to 'toe the line. — Greg Oliver

Marx's original definition of "bourgeoisie" referred to ownership of the means of production. One of the characteristics of the modern world is that this form of property has become vastly democratized through stock ownership and pension plans. Even if one does not possess large amounts of capital, working in a managerial capacity or profession often grants one a very different kind of social status and outlook from a wage earner or low-skilled worker. — Francis Fukuyama

I had 11 years of managerial experience and four years of coaching before I managed a big-league team. To me, it was important, because I learned a lot through trial and error. And it's tough to have to go through trial and error when you're a big-league manager. — Jim Leyland

I suppose people who graduate from very selective and expensive colleges, and receive immense reinforcement from colleagues who preceded them there, develop an inflated sense of their ability to effectively manage things, especially complex things. Many of these young, bright people cannot believe that our creaking and foundering systems won't yield to their managerial tinkering, and the net effect must be to turn them into very cynical careerists with nothing left but personal ladder-climbing and wealth accumulation ... The political left in America makes up in cynical cowardly avarice for all the mendacious stupidity on the political right, so we end up at this moment in history with a perfect blend of every bad impulse in human nature and none of the virtues. — James Howard Kunstler

No president in modern times has come to power with less political experience or less managerial experience. On the other hand, no president has come to power with a clearer record of political extremism. As senator, Barack Obama had the most left-wing voting record in the Senate ... — Bob Tyrrell

You are only as good as your people — Adela Masarykova

As for time, it is forever shrinking. Oppressed by multitasking and managerial efficiency, we live under a perpetual time pressure. The disease of this millennium will be called chronophobia or speedomania, and its treatment will be embarrassingly old-fashioned. Contemporary nostalgia is not so much about the past as about vanishing the present. — Svetlana Boym

The onlooker had better wipe the sympathy off his face. What he has seen is a revolution, not the home of little cogs and drones. What he has seen is the dormitory of the next managerial class. — William H. Whyte

The Swedes have coined the term 'management by perkele' to portray the Finnish managerial approach. Instead of collectively pondering all the possible alternatives and letting every member of the staff from the cleaner to the MD voice their views, as the Swedes do, the Finns act swiftly and don't waste time on the decision-making process. If something isn't happening quickly enough, it is necessary for the top managers to slam their fists on the table and yell, 'Perkele!' Repeatedly, if necessary. — Tarja Moles

A man should never be appointed into a managerial position if his vision focuses on people's weaknesses rather than on their strengths. — Peter Drucker

At the end of the day, if you've got the great idea, and someone judges you've got the managerial capability, you'll probably get the backing for it. — John Caudwell

What the railroads lack is not opportunity but some of the managerial imaginativeness and audacity that made them great. — Harvard Business School Press

Canada's health system, or rather its 13 provincial and territorial health systems, need to find more urgency and resolve for solutions to its healthcare sustainability challenge. A measure of tough love will be needed to maintain enduring values but to change outdated delivery models. Canada stands at the crossroads and needs to find the political will and managerial and clinical skill to establish a progressive coalition of the willing. — Mark Britnell

People often confuse leadership with managerial skills. — Sylvain Neuvel

My liberal friends love to dismiss Reagan. You know, they'll say something like, 'Oh, didn't he, like, only read one-page memos when he was in the White House?' Well, that's just good managerial practice. I mean, Franklin Roosevelt made people write one-page memos. — Rick Perlstein

Reinvention takes place in the middle of the organization, so the first requisite is that there has to be a middle. I'll assume your organization still has one. Now pour in some slack, increase safety, and take steps to break down managerial isolation. Viola, the formula for middle-of-the-hierarchy reinvention. — Tom DeMarco

Effective managing therefore happens where art , craft, and science meet. But in a classroom of students without managerial experience, these have no place to meet there is nothing to do. — Henry Mintzberg

Principle-centered leadership is practiced from the inside out on four levels: 1) personal (my relationship with myself); 2) interpersonal (my relationships and interactions with others); 3) managerial (my responsibility to get a job done with others); and 4) organizational (my need to organize people - to recruit them, train them, compensate them, build teams, solve problems, and create aligned structure, strategy, and systems). — Stephen R. Covey

As we look at the major acquisitions that others made during 1982, our reaction is not envy, but relief that we were non-participants. For in many of these acquisitions, managerial intellect wilted in competition with managerial adrenaline. The thrill of the chase blinded the pursuers to the consequences of the catch. Pascal's observation seems apt: It has struck me that all men's — Warren Buffett

Life inside successful Web startups - especially the really successful ones - can be nasty, brutish, and short. As companies grow exponentially, egos clash, investors jockey for control, and business complexities rapidly exceed the managerial abilities of the founders. — Brad Stone

A man should never be appointed to a managerial position if his vision focuses on people's weaknesses rather than on their strengths. The man who always knows exactly what people cannot do, but never sees anything they can do, will undermine the spirit of his organization. — Peter F. Drucker

In the economic sphere, the program demanded thorough decentralization and managerial independence of enterprises, as well as legalization of small-scale private enterprise, especially in the service sector. — Alexander Dubcek

When you choose a managerial path, you are choosing to devote your life to people. Period. — Tom Peters

Those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to the same privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations, and attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class interests as well. Journalists entering the system are unlikely to make their way unless they conform to these ideological pressures, generally by internalizing the values; it is not easy to say one thing and believe another, and those who fail to conform will tend to be weeded out by familiar mechanisms. — Noam Chomsky

Converting a classic batch-and-queue production system to continuous flow with effective pull by the customer will double labor productivity all the way through the system (for direct, managerial, and technical workers, from raw materials to delivered product) while cutting production throughput times by 90 percent and reducing inventories in the system by 90 percent as well. — James P. Womack

A manager must appreciate and understand the importance of every resource he has. There is a specific purpose for every resource. It is the duty of the manager to utilise the resources to the fullest in the most appropriate manner. — Abhishek Ratna

Despite popular opinion, there are no important parallels between Madonna and Monroe, who was a virtuoso comedienne but who was in secure, depressive, passive-aggressive, and infuriatingly obstructionist in her career habits. Madonna is manic, perfectionist, workaholic. Monroe abused alcohol and drugs, while Madonna shuns them. Monroe had a tentative, melting, dreamy solipsism; Madonna has Judy Holliday's wisecracking smart mouth and Joan Crawford's steel will and bossy, circus master managerial competence. — Camille Paglia

Basically, I think that most people either make too much money or not enough money. The jobs that are essential and important pay too little, and those that are essentially managerial pay far too much. — Michael Dirda

It is impossible to manage the health care requirements of tens of millions of American citizens at the federal level. It is impossible to manage all of the permutations of people's economic aspirations and lives through a complex tax code. It is impossible to try to second-guess the market. It is impossible, from a managerial standpoint, for the federal government to do the things it is trying to do today. — Frederick W. Smith

The road to hell is paved with the pursuit of volume. Volume leads to marginal products, marginal customers, and greatly increased managerial complexity. — Richard Koch

Theory is a dirty word in some managerial quarters. That is rather curious, because all of us, managers especially, can no more get along without theories than libraries can get along without catalogs and for the same reason: theories help us make sense of incoming information. — Henry Mintzberg

Dreams have their place in managerial activity, but they need to be kept severely under control. — Arnold Weinstock

Executives do many things in addition to making decisions. But only executives make decisions. The first managerial skill is, therefore, the making of effective decisions. — Peter Drucker

The only perceptions that matter are those of your customers. Yet companies often design their marketing, advertising, and sales messages from a purely managerial perspective. — Jaynie L. Smith

Industry suffers from the managerial dogma that for the sake of stability and continuity, the company should be independent of the competence of individual employees. — Edsger Dijkstra

The managerial class has forced on us a public language that makes no sense — Don Watson

One reason for the tremendous increase in health-care costs in the U.S. is managerial neglect of the "hotel services" by the people who dominate the hospital, such as doctors and nurses. — Peter Drucker

Their souls are usually heavy and managerial. — Charles Baxter

Our society is run by a managerial bureaucracy, by professional politicians; people are motivated by mass suggestion, their aim is producing more and consuming more, as purposes in
themselves. — Erich Fromm

A company has only so much money and managerial time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else. — Jack Welch

We can quibble about what precise percentage of performance it accounts for, but no one can seriously question that smartness - the intellectual ability to do the job - is one of the primary determinants of whether someone succeeds or fails at managerial work. — Justin Menkes

If a manager asks an academic consultant what to do and that consultant answers, then the consultant should be fired. No academic has the experience to know the context of a managerial problem well enough to give specific advice about a specific situation. — James G. March

[There is no shortage of scientific talent.] But [I am] much less optimistic about the managerial vision [of the pharmaceutical industry] to catalyse these talents to deliver the results we all want. — James Whyte Black

A situation where a solution to a stakeholder problem is imposed by a government agency or the courts must be seen as a managerial failure. — R. Edward Freeman

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
[From the Preface] — C.S. Lewis

Absolute size by itself is no indicator of success and achievement, let alone of managerial competence. Being the right size is. — Peter Drucker

Nobody talks about how Puffy went to Howard University or about Lil Wayne attending the University of Houston. All the young kids know is what they see on the videos. They don't realize that these guys have taken managerial and business courses, and know how to brand and how to market themselves. They're very smart. — Yolanda Adams

We are shifting from a managerial society to an entrepreneurial society. — John Naisbitt

Although the typist has disappeared, her work has not: now you do it yourself ... Since most companies have reduced the managerial ranks, there are fewer and fewer bosses, so you become a manger, his boss, and his secretary all rolled into one. — Corinne Maier

Every managerial act must be seen as an unequivocal support for urgency in pursuit of constant testing, change, and improvement. — Tom Peters

All it took was having them spend their initial six minutes a little differently: instead of adopting a managerial mindset for evaluating ideas, they got into a creative mindset by generating ideas themselves. Just — Adam M. Grant

Managers who feel inadequate in their jobs are often unreceptive to employees' ideas and denigrate subordinates who speak up, according to research at a multinational energy company and a subsequent experiment. In such cases underlings might consider voicing their ideas in private so that bosses feel less threatened. "MANAGING TO STAY IN THE DARK: MANAGERIAL SELF-EFFICACY, EGO DEFENSIVENESS, AND THE AVERSION TO EMPLOYEE VOICE," BY NATHANAEL J. FAST, ETHAN R. BURRIS, AND CAROLINE A. BARTEL — Anonymous

Each person is ignited by different things based on their personal calling and gifting. Pastoral people are more community minded. Administrative or managerial people are more corporation minded. Visionary leaders and pioneers are more cause minded. Together, let's seek to enhance our sense of community, excel in our corporation and run passionately towards the cause given to us by Jesus Christ. — Mark Conner

Over the past several years, I've been more in a managerial role. — Dennis Ritchie

I believe email-based status reports are the clearest and best signs of managerial incompetence and laziness. — Rands

To experience positive/healthy emotions you don't need a big house or a nice car or a managerial job or a million dollar in your bank. — Maddy Malhotra

Liberalism makes this mistake in regard to private property and Marxism makes it in regard to socialized property ... The Marxist illusion is partly derived from a romantic conception of human nature ... It assumes that the socialization of property will eliminate human egotism ... The development of a managerial class in Russia, combing economic with political power, is an historic refutation of the Marxist theory. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Managerial and professional people hadn't really used computers, hadn't sat down at keyboards, until personal computers. Personal computers have a totally different feel. — Mitch Kapor

Hundreds of studies have shown that people overrate their health, leadership ability, intelligence, professional competence, sporting prowess, and managerial skills. People also hold the nonsensical belief that they are inherently lucky. Most people think they are more likely than the average person to attain a good first job, to have gifted children, and to live to a ripe old age. They also think that they are less likely than the average person to be the victim of an accident, crime, disease, depression, unwanted pregnancy, or earthquake. Why — Steven Pinker

We need to reduce military budgets; raise living standards; engender respect for learning; support science, scholarship, invention, and industry; promote free inquiry; reduce domestic coercion; involve the workers more in managerial decisions; and promote genuine respect and understanding derived from an acknowledgement of our common humanity and our common jeopardy. — Carl Sagan

a big part of a middle manager's work is to supply information and know-how, and to impart a sense of the preferred method of handling things to the groups under his control and influence. A manager also makes and helps to make decisions. Both kinds of basic managerial tasks can only occur during face-to-face encounters, and therefore only during meetings. Thus I will assert again that a meeting is nothing less than the medium through which managerial work is performed. That means we should not be fighting their very existence, but rather using the time spent in them as efficiently as possible. The — Andrew S. Grove

His military triumphs had been neither frequent nor epic in scale. He had lost more battles than he had won, had botched several through strategic blunders, and had won at Yorktown only with the indispensable aid of the French Army and fleet. But he was a different kind of general fighting a different kind of war, and his military prowess cannot be judged by the usual scorecard of battles won and lost. His fortitude in keeping the impoverished Continental Army intact was a major historic accomplishment. It always stood on the brink of dissolution, and Washington was the one figure who kept it together, the spiritual and managerial genius of the whole enterprise: he had been resilient in the face of every setback, courageous in the face of every danger. He was that rare general who was great between battles and not just during them. — Ron Chernow

In the managerial organization, the top people sit in judgment; in the innovative organization it is their job to encourage ideas, no matter how unripe or crude. — Peter Drucker

As far as the U.S. economy is concerned, I always believe that the U.S. economy is solidly based, not only in a material sense, but more importantly, the United States has the strength of scientific and technological talent, and managerial expertise. — Wen Jiabao

Sanders had fought the B-school mentality that she exemplified. After watching these graduates come and go, Sanders had finally concluded that there was a fundamental flaw in their education. They had been trained to believe that they were equipped to manage anything. But there was no such thing as general managerial skill and tools. — Michael Crichton

Managerial discretion can take many forms, some very subtle. Individual managers may run slack operations; they may pursue subgoals that are at variance with corporate purposes; they can engage in self-dealing. — Oliver E. Williamson